Mighty Earth partners with Green Corps to Clean Up America’s Meat
Tyson Foods needs to step up and make a clear commitment to cleaning up pollution from its meat that is contaminating waters across the country. That’s the core message that Green Corps organizers will be bringing to communities most affected by this pollution as part of Mighty Earth’s campaign for cleaner meat.
Mighty Earth has partnered with Green Crops to place seven grassroots organizers in communities across the Midwest and Gulf, including Des Moines, Iowa; Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Fayetteville, Arkansas; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Dallas, Texas. Green Corps is the nation’s leading training program for environmental organizing, and partners with environmental campaigns across the country as part of a year-long training program.
“Green Corps gets the job done,” said Mighty Earth CEO Glenn Hurowitz, himself a graduate of Green Corps’ organizing fellowship. “With the nation’s most talented young environmental organizers on board, we’re building a powerful movement that will end the meat industry’s out-of-control pollution.”
The meat industry is the main source of water pollution in the United States. Pollution from raising meat is contaminating drinking water across the Midwest, and flows downstream along the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico where it causes a massive dead zone every summer- an area so polluted that marine life cannot survive. This year’s dead zone was the largest on record. The pollution comes primarily from producing the vast quantities of corn and soy required to raise meat, although manure is also a source.
An investigation by Mighty Earth into the specific companies responsible for this pollution found Tyson Foods to be at the forefront. Tyson Foods is America’s largest meat company, producing one out of every five pounds of meat in the country, and its vast footprint can be found driving the agricultural practices in all the regions experiencing the worst pollution from meat.
However, Tyson’s new CEO recently stated he wants to ‘place sustainability at the center of the company’s strategy’. Mighty Earth has partnered with Green Corps to make sure Tyson lives up to its word and adopts a clear commitment to cleaning up pollution from its vast meat supply chain. Green Corps organizers are taking the findings of our investigation to communities across the country most impacted by the meat industry’s pollution in order to build the call for Tyson to Clean It Up.
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